Sports publisher GiveMeSport built a tech platform to Facebook-proof its audience

Online sports publisher GiveMeSport prides itself on how quickly it can adapt to Facebook’s algorithm changes. The U.K.-based publisher has built its own tech platform to teach its writers the best social tactics — a strategy it hopes to build on since it was acquired by Canada-based AI firm Breaking Data in December.

Four-year-old GiveMeSport, which has 26 million Facebook likes (ahead of BBC Sport’s Facebook page with 13 million and Bleacher Report’s 7 million), was built on a distributed model, but claims it is immune to the platform’s algorithm changes.

The publisher pulls this off with its proprietary tech, which detects changes in how content should be distributed on the platform. The company started as a social media agency that managed 124 famous athletes and football stars such as Wayne Rooney, which also helped it learn early on about the unpredictability of the algorithm. Three years ago, the company pivoted to become a publisher, continuing to use its proprietary tech, part of which is similar to Mashable’s Velocity, a platform that predicts when stories will go viral. A team of 18 full-time engineers continuously tweaks the platform.